


Long Way to Hear You

by treefrogie84



Series: Old Guard Bingo [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Ace/Aro Nile, Eavesdropping, Gen, POV Outsider, time between missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:01:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26179906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treefrogie84/pseuds/treefrogie84
Summary: It’s not the English that draws her attention in the small cafe, although that’s uncommon enough, it’s the accent. Home. Midwest US home even, not New York or California.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman
Series: Old Guard Bingo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1901185
Comments: 12
Kudos: 150
Collections: The Old Guard Bingo





	Long Way to Hear You

**Author's Note:**

> Set in some amorphous point in the future and generically European, although the map I was looking at was for Nice, France.   
> Many thanks to Milli who helped with de-Americanizing this.

It’s not the English that draws her attention in the small cafe, although that’s uncommon enough, it’s the accent. _Home_. Midwest US home even, not New York or California.

There aren’t many Americans at this school anyway, Mel’s the only one in her program, and all of a sudden she desperately wants to flip her chair around, drop her notebook on the table, and talk about… anything, as long as it’s in this woman’s voice.

It’s been a long three years, and she’s only been back to Kansas once. She gets to be homesick occasionally.

“Book, what the hell?” The woman demands. “We’re going to miss our train.”

“Joe and Nicky will wait,” the man— Book?— points out. His accent is… odd. Definitely French, but not the French that surrounds them all. Quebec maybe? “And even if they don’t, we can catch up tomorrow.”

The woman grumbles a bit and Mel shifts her chair— so the sun isn’t shining in her eyes, of course. Not to spy.

She’s gorgeous, a yellow blouse near golden in the setting sun against her skin, hair pulled up in a bun consisting of dozens of smaller braids. Mel could watch her all evening, but that would be creepy.

The woman sighs. “Fine, but you’re the one explaining things to everyone else. Why we split off—”

“We’ve got three days to the job, Nile. Why are you so worried?”

“I don’t know,” Nile snaps. “But I’m always nervous before a mission, don’t know why this would be any different.”

Mel frowns. Job? Mission? What the hell? This sort of thing doesn’t happen outside of the movies.

Book says something else, not in French or English, Arabic maybe? And Nile chuckles before responding in the same language.

Mel returns her focus to her book, trying to give them their privacy. A small cafe in a large city doesn’t grant them a whole lot of that, but she doesn’t need to be eavesdropping on some James Bond type shit. She’s only got a semester left, no reason to risk anything happening to her.

Two more men approach the table, grinning widely. They all greet each other, an overwhelming jumble of languages— French and English and Italian, and Jesus, how many languages do these people speak? One of them gestures at her extra chair, in an uncommonly American gesture. “May I?” She nods, letting him take it.

They chat animatedly for a long time, distracting Mel from her novel every time they change languages. They’re keeping each other on their toes, she figures, since French Dude and American Lady are sometimes more hesitant in their responses. The other two— Big Nose and (maybe?) Egyptian— seem to be equally fluent in everything, although their phrasing when American Lady abruptly switches to English is… odd. Definitely not their native language.

Eventually, she gives up doing more than the very minimum to make it look like she’s not eavesdropping, just listening to the rise and fall of their conversation like it’s some sort of balm to her soul.

Maybe it is, even though today is the first day in four months she’s had a chance to read something for fun.

* * *

“She’s watching you again,” Book points out in Italian, leaning back in his rickety chair. “I’ll slip her your number if you want.”

“I do _not_ want, thank you,” Nile says firmly, taking a sip of her long cold coffee as a cover. “I can find my own dates.” When, if, she ever wants one. Although, on this side of immortality, being alone forever seems… different. Who cares. That’s Future!Nile’s problem. Right now, it still doesn’t seem real, so continuing on her as happy-ass ace/aro self is fine. Let Booker and Andy have all the existential dread at living away from their beloved.

She’s got fifteen years at bypassing dates on her side, she can keep doing that until the guys get the idea.

Andy has never once tried, in two years. But who knows what’s going on in Andy’s mind on the best of days.

Nicky is watching her carefully, like he’s trying to puzzle something out before draining his espresso. “We should go,” he cuts through Booker and Joe’s bickering about… something. “It’s getting late and I do not wish to be stuck here overnight if we don’t have to be.”

They all nod, returning their coffee cups and splitting up. They’ll meet back up on the train, heading north towards Zurich.


End file.
